BOOK PLUG: I just published an X-rated adult picture book called Pedro and the Pelican. It’s the story of a loving husband faced with a tough decision. It features beautiful illustrations by my friend N.K. Cui and makes a great gift for the perverts, deviants, and sex freaks in your life. Get it direct from the publisher at this link. Here is the link again. And again. Please click.
I’ll begin by sending my support to the great people of Texas, who are struggling through a horrendous cold snap and multiple snow storms. I have vivid memories of losing power during snowstorms as a child: a pipe bursting and flooding the basement, causing dozens of lost ping pong balls to surface on a tide of brown water; misunderstanding the yellow-mellow/brown-down flush rules and leaving a wet turd to fester in the toilet for days; watching my mom negotiate with a hotel clerk to let us bring my pet frog into the room so it would not die in the cold. I genuinely feel for you and wish you all the best.
To that end, I’d like to nominate a few prominent Texans for this week’s Chazzy’s World Too Stupid To Be Truly Evil, Yet Too Evil To Be Truly Stupid Award. And the nominees are:
Governor Greg Abbott - As tens of millions of his constituents lost power, with people dying of hypothermia carbon monoxide poisoning and houses collapsing from water damage, Governor Abbott paid his friend Sean Hannity a visit. The two have been old friends ever since Gov. Abbott’s passionate defense of Texas’s sex toy ban, because both Hannity and Abbott had their penises ripped off and shredded like pork carnitas while taking turns on a TurboSuck9000 Oral Sex Simulator at the 2007 National Prayer Breakfast.
Governor Abbott blamed the outages on frozen wind turbines and used the outages to demonstrate the failures of renewable energy. Of course, the outages were largely caused by frozen natural gas pipes and failed coal infrastructure. Wind power accounts for just 23% of Texas’s energy generation and experts said wind turbine woes were an “order of magnitude smaller” than natural gas problems. On the Chazzy’s World Lying Index, where 1 is a small fib (telling the ol’ ball-and-chain you’re stuck at the office while playing nine holes) and 5 is an unforgivable falsehood (“It’s not you, it’s me”), we give Gov. Abbott a 5.
Former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry - You might recall Rick Perry from his term as Governor of Texas, two failed presidential bids, or when he started wearing glasses to look smart like a librarian in a porno. Perry made his thoughts known in a guest post on Kevin McCarthy’s blog. As a Substacker, I hate to tear another blogger down, but I can’t stay silent. Perry noted that Texans were happy to make this sacrifice: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” I spoke with some people in Texas and they assured me that Governor Perry was absolutely correct. As they huddled with their families in one blanketed-off room to keep warm, watching their cell phone batteries dwindle and rationing their bottled water, plugging their nostrils against the acrid stench of hundreds of dollars of groceries rotting in the refrigerator, they were grateful to be unencumbered by government overreach.
Rick Perry might be as smart as his acetate frames make him look: Texas’s power precarity can be traced to the avoidance of federal regulation. When FDR signed the Federal Power Act in 1935, Texas refused to allow their energy grid to cross state lines specifically to avoid federal rules. As a result, the United States has three power grids: East, West, and Texas. This allows ERCOT, which manages Texas electricity, to price energy based on the state’s own vast natural gas, oil, and coal reserves. It also allows ERCOT to jack prices up by 10,000% during crises, as it did this week. In his post, Perry urged people not to let “the crisis of the day” distract people from Texas’s long-term energy goal: millions suffering so that a few Hummer enthusiasts can fund their next outing to shoot a caged snow leopard at close range.
Senator Ted Cruz - I feel for Ted Cruz. Earlier this week, Cruz was attacked by body-negative cyberbullies for his physical appearance after debuting his new mullet hairstyle, which made him look like a 19-year-old pursuing a self-directed degree in Orgasm Theory at NYU Gallatin. Now, that same mob is trying to blame an immigrant trailblazer for a snowstorm, of all things. Ted did a radical act of self-care and booked himself a flight to Cancún. I commend him for making space for himself to process his feelings.
However, I must end my praise there. Photos of Ted boarding the flight show him wielding a large rolling suitcase, as well as a bulging tote bag. That tote bag almost certainly exceeds the United Airlines size limit of 9 inches x 10 inches x 17 inches for personal items. This means Cruz very likely put the tote bag in the overhead compartment, instead of under his seat where personal items belong. Cruz took valuable overhead compartment space away from other passengers. This is conduct unbecoming of our leaders. He must be held accountable.
And the winner is … all three of these evil idiots! Congrats fellas!
Honorable Mention: Tim Boyd, former mayor of Colorado City, TX, who resigned after posting on Facebook that people asking when power would be restored should stop “looking for a damn handout.” He advised people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and construct their own municipal water supply and electricity grid. Because Chazzy’s World believes in encouraging deranged posting from election officials and refrains from mocking those obviously abusing prescription stimulants, Mayor Boyd is ineligible for the award.
This is a time for reflection. In one year, we have suffered multiple once-in-a-lifetime weather events: a polar vortex in Texas, horrific wildfires in California, and a record hurricane season. We are clearly unprepared for the ravages climate change will wreak on us. And now we’re watching the green energy mecca of Texas, that petri dish of eco-friendly innovation, suffer the consequences. If this is what the future holds, we might as well not try.
With the Republic of Texas in shambles, let’s check in on the New York Free State. Generalissimo Cuomo, head of the ruling junta, is in hot water over the Covid nursing home scandal, which I wrote about last year. Here’s a quick rundown:
State Attorney General Letitia James accused Cuomo’s administration of significantly underreporting nursing home deaths early in the pandemic and ordered them to release complete data. Turns out, the real nursing home death count was more than 15,000, instead of the 8500 reported. In a Zoom call with Democratic lawmakers, Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admitted to withholding data due to a possible Department of Justice inquiry. State pols of both parties roundly criticized Cuomo and proposed removing his emergency powers, with State Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens emerging as one of the most vocal critics. Kim told reporters about a threatening phone call from Cuomo, in which the Governor asked him if he “was an honorable man.” Cuomo eventually went public in his feud with Kim and accused him of running a “continuing racket” to solicit donations from nail salons. Threatening phone calls? Protection rackets? Lying to the feds? At least make me work for my Italiphobic remarks! This is like shooting baccala in a Chianti barrel!
Now, lest you forget, this is the same governor who spent the early days of the pandemic doing Vaudevillian skits with his brother on CNN. The same governor who released a bizarre, Thomas Nast-style poster celebrating his achievements with Covid in New York. The same governor who is currently on a press tour for his memoir about “leadership lessons” from the pandemic. The same governor who had people calling themselves Cuomo-sexual and fantasizing about grinding their pelvises on his Roman nose. The same governor who teamed up with Lady Gaga and Andrea Bocelli to record the Italian-pride anthem, “Waste Management Consultant is the Fredo of the World.”
I’m noticing a disturbing trend in American politics. In a previous column, I noted that “popularity must be more fun than power.” Marjorie Taylor Greene seems gleeful to be kicked off committees so she can spend more time on Facebook. The Obamas pour their efforts into producing movies and Meghan and Harry quit the royal life to become podcasters. AOC and Ilhan Omar devote ever-increasing amounts of time to making sure no take goes undunked, no reply unquoteweeted, and no subtweet unclapbacked. Texas leaders arguing against a completely hypothetical Green New Deal as their people freeze and Cuomo doing self-aggrandizement publicity tours as Covid ravages New York are just more of the same. Maybe it’s the Selfie Generation being poisoned by social media, or the fact that election cycles are now permanent, or the timeless appeal of fame. But our leaders are now more focused on promoting themselves and their ideological teams than the unsexy, often difficult work of leading. Was it always this way?
A few years ago, I went to Greece to volunteer with Middle Eastern refugees. (I am an amazing person.) In Athens, I visited the City Plaza hotel. The hotel had been abandoned during the Greek economic crisis and sat empty, until anti-fascist groups converted it into housing for several hundred refugee families. They provided free food, shelter, and basic necessities and protected the residents from fascists who targeted them. The project ended in 2019, but even while it was operational, the organizers were frank about the limitations of City Plaza. They viewed it not as a permanent solution to the refugee crisis, but a demonstration. City Plaza was intended to be living proof that Greece could do more for refugees. It was an ideological proof-of-concept.
That’s how I view the governments of Texas and New York now. Both states are proofs-of-concept for ideologies, albeit far more cynical ones than City Plaza’s. They are like World’s Fair exhibitions of future worlds or Potemkin Villages advertising the supposed greatness of life under a party’s undiluted agenda. Texas demonstrates the Republic dream of a Movement Conservative, pseudo-libertarian petro-state for the rest of the country. New York does the same for the Democrat pro-corporate, centrist liberal, identity politics ideal of the United States. Both state governments are used as rhetorical tools instead of mechanisms responsible for the betterment of peoples’ lives. The megalomaniacs and narcissists in charge view government as little more than a vehicle for self-promotion. Sucks for us.